#jackwatch

Jackwatch Nights

My gosh it’s beautiful, no? It’s been more than a year, jackwatchers, and what have we learned? So much, yet nothing at all. 

When I moved here from California (oh god I KNOW), this structure we see in the photo above was a fully functioning (as much as one can be) Jack in the Box restaurant-type entity. Now it’s in its awkward phase, isolated and apparently deteriorating -- but is it? Yes. But someday, it might not be. How? Well. As the rest of the city destroys itself, as Austin’s revered concert arenas and/or discotecas of yesterday are transmogrified into nearly identical replicas of themselves--physically the same but experientially weird and bad, entirely dysfunctional, sterile, like mules--only this Jack in the Box will allow us to properly reflect on past. Yeah sure, that music club you say you love, the one you made the sign about, the one you went to the forum for, let me tell you this: Your idealization of the past is what will finally render it unrecognizable. Your memories will cause the thing to cease to exist. The reverence is the real thing you treasure--your feelings--and that treasuring is what will destroy the things you allegedly love. Your houses of worship are false and will thusly crumble but this, this undernoticed but appropriately appreciated JackintheBox restaurant will be the truest thing left standing in this dying province, and the man who rents out these slanty parking spaces for $7 apiece will be the king of Austin-town.

Ashley recently informed me that it’s “shady” to have a “dating” (i actually use it just to make friends, network, antagonize strangers, things like that, I don’t really use it for “dating” per se) anyway to have a “dating” app profile that’s connected to a phantom Facebook account on which I have no information and no friend connections. To honor Ashley, the smartest friend I have but it’s a tie, I for the first time created a real dating app profile connected to my real thefacebook profile and dot.com. That information is superfluous, generously, but here’s the actual point: As a part of this big “putting myself out there” self-movement, I also connected my instagram (it’s a photo sharing app, you kinda had to be there) account to my dating app profile. It’s gonna get eyeballs, friends. Cause my dating app profile always like blowing the heck up. The most important thing is that you would notice if you looked that my instagram account personal biographical information includes two pieces of information followed by a link-- and that link, is to, jackwatch the web log, THIS weblog. do you understand what i’m saying? every man with an attention span who’s on the dating app geolocated for my general area may or may not end up looking at this exact “article” (what up, trevor/cody!)-- yes this one, right here. I’m talking influencers, IT professionals, underperforming google employees, adequately performing Facebook employees, exceptionally performing linkedin employees, service industry types with other passions such as but not limited to photography or songwriting, sales representatives, vet techs, webmasters, music industry peripherals, sad dads, bad dads, mad dads, crossfits, religions, divorces, hamburgers, alcoholics both anonymous and unacknowledged, and vet techs-- they all here now. Hello and welcome to your once and future and never before jack in the box and maybe even we are soul mates, friend! Good jackwatch to us all. 

The Waiting Game, an investigation by the Texas Observer on Texans with intellectual disabilities who end up on the streets

My forthcoming thesis will address the connections between Jack in the Box, the mental health crisis within the homeless community, preventative health, and magic.